Falling Apart
by SiuanSedai
Summary: She paced up and down, back and forth, hour after hour. She never slept, never ate, but no one stopped her from falling apart. Inspired by Lisa Loeb's song She's Falling Apart.
1. Falling Apart

This was written for the June theme of dark/light on the ficvariations challenge community on livejournal. In short, I write seven fics based on the same theme. Enjoy )

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Lothiriel twirled her fork aimlessly, earning a stern look from her father when it slipped from her grasp and clattered onto the table. She wasn't hungry; she never was anymore. The servants had learnt to only give her a small portion, scared of the blank look she gave them if they served her more than that, but Lothiriel still never finished her dinner.

"Please excuse me, father," she said quietly, and once Imrahil nodded tiredly she slipped from her seat, hurrying away to her chambers where she would spend hours looking at the portrait of her mother.

Imrahil watched her leave, his forehead creased in worry at the way his daughter held herself – her posture was slightly odd, as if she had a constant nagging stomachache. He wondered if it was time to make her see a healing woman.

Lothiriel woke early the next day as always. She paced back and forth in her room from the moment she awoke until her maid knocked on the door. Then she sprung back into bed and pretended to sleep. There was no need for anyone to know that she never sat down, that she walked and stood and danced until her feet were so sore that she couldn't stand. Then she would rub cream into the sore appendages and keep going.

Imrahil watched her push her food around her plate, cleverly disguising the way she played with it and rearranged it so it appeared she had eaten at least some of it. Lothiriel didn't know he was starting to see through her lies.

"I'm tired, father. May I be excused?" Lothiriel asked softly. Imrahil sighed and nodded, wishing he had the inner strength to make her stay and eat. He hated seeing his daughter looking so pale and tired all the time. He resolved to make her see a doctor the very next day.

It was dark. All the candles had been extinguished and the only illumination was outside, a faint sparkling from the stars which did nothing to pierce the pitch-blackness of the night. Only a few guards were awake, looking out for any sign of orcs threatening Dol Amroth.

Lothiriel was awake, too. She couldn't sleep. The incessant urge to keep pacing made her legs twitch even though she was so tired she could barely keep her eyes open. She couldn't see where she was pacing, couldn't see in the darkness where the furniture of her room was, but she'd paced the room so often that the exact length and number of steps was imprinted in her memory.

In the morning, the maid got no response to her knocks. She opened the door gingerly and gasped. The princess of Dol Amroth was lying in a heap on the floor, light streaming through the window and illuminating her unconscious body. She'd fallen apart.

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There's a sequel to this, which I'll post tomorrow. Love ya 3


	2. Fallen Apart

How could he have let things get this way? How could he have not noticed that something was so wrong? Imrahil's hands were tight fists, his nails digging into his palms and searing through the skin. He felt the blood trickle down and wondered how many times Lothiriel had felt tears trickle down her cheeks.

He'd failed her. He'd known she wasn't her usual cheerful self, but put it down to adolescent depression. And sometimes she'd looked so happy and her face had lit up the room as she laughed, and Imrahil's worries had always been quelled by that sudden illumination.

But it hadn't been real. She must have sometimes felt happy; because no one's smile could be that bright if they were miserable underneath. But the quietness and the reluctance to eat had always returned, and in his relief at seeing the darkness hanging over her lifted, Imrahil had never noticed just how quickly it descended again.

The carpet in her room was worn. The maid who found her had screamed, and he'd come running, pushing servants and nobles alike out of his way as he ran to his daughter's side. There was a flat track in the carpet, vague footprints imprinted on it from countless hours of pacing, and Imrahil had wondered why no one had noticed before.

Lothiriel's skin was pale and tinged with the grey of death. The white shroud she was wrapped in did a poor job of disguising her skeletal frame compared to the voluminous velvet dresses that she usually wore. She seemed so small and fragile lying there in the dark oaken coffin, and Imrahil cursed himself for not noticing anything before it was too late.

She'd fallen apart, and no one had noticed. She'd slowly killed herself, and he hadn't realised. He'd never see her smile light up the room again, she'd never wake up half the palace tripping over a cat on one of her midnight strolls and scream loud enough to resurrect the dead again, she'd never come to him late at night wanting a comforting hug from her father because something in the dark scared her. Not that he'd done a good job of comforting her this time. He hadn't been there for her when she needed him most, hadn't given her a cake and made her promise not to tell the cook that he'd taken it for a midnight feast, hadn't been an arm to lean on when she felt weak. She'd fallen into darkness and it was all his fault.


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